It's not the PLP we were promised in 1998

“I’m now wondering why Bryant has joined the combined opposition. Most people that I know who were once PLP supporters who have joined the combined oppoisition have done so because the PLP did not do something for them personally.”

Okay, she got me. The PLP did not do something for me personally, and now I feel compelled to reject them at the next election. For those who are wondering what “that something” is, I would like to direct you to the very first PLP Throne Speech. In it you will find the following:

“Mr President and Members of the Senate: Mr Speaker and Members of the Honourable House of Assembly: You have earned the trust of the people of this country; as demonstrated by the outpouring of support that filled even the hallowed grounds outside this chamber. You have been elected to lead this country into a new era — an immense task that will require a new sense of determination, a new sense of vision, and most importantly a new regard for the people who have elected you.”

The PLP hasn’t delivered on that something. At every single election since 1998 we’ve been told that the PLP has not had enough time to undo the past, and every year that goes by that argument has less and less validity. For me it is now abundantly clear that the PLP of 2012 is not the PLP we were promised in 1998. It is abundantly clear that what we can achieve is limited by the people who represent us.

Yes, we are essentially what we elect, and as my sons would say when I’m trying to teach them math, “I just don’t get it.”

Consider last week’s political shenanigans for example.

I just don’t get the PLP’s removal of OBA posters from Government bus shelters. The PLP press release stated: “Allowing advertising on government property sets a dangerous precedent. When the PLP was offered, we turned it down as we believe it’s highly inappropriate to have political advertising on government property. The OBA crossing this line is very dangerous.”

Okay, I just don’t get it. During the very same week the PLP was holding three political meetings/rallies at public schools. Is this not Government property?

I also just don’t get why Derrick Burgess is up on stage and presented as Deputy Leader of the PLP. Given what has been documented in the Auditor’s Report on the BLDC, the 21-year lease of White’s Island and Burgess’s resignation from Cabinet back in June over a physical altercation with a fellow Cabinet minister, why is he still Deputy Party Leader?

Next, consider Burgess’s comments that Correia Construction also did the fast ferry docks. So one company did the fast ferry docks, had a major hand in the new TCD building, allegedly has majority ownership of the company that runs the Dockyard cement silos and also did the Dockyard cruise ship dock/terminal building? Whatever happened to black empowerment? I honestly don’t get it.

Then there is the presentation of Candidate John Gibbons as one of the PLP’s ‘Rising Stars’. Earlier this year Gibbons logged onto Chris Famous’s BE2012 and launched two utterly incoherent, poorly punctuated and utterly embarrassing, attacks on a voter:

“Mike Hind, you have never stood against those who would devour me and my family.... you seem to stand for the punishment of even the new generation PLP who love Bermuda a least as much as you but hey im just a sheeple... cup match we are the same politically Mike Hind i fear you would enable all manner of evil against me and my family sad words yes but i believe them to be true...’

Here’s more: “i am no one devoid of power but i am determined to preach that a new generation must stand ready to saddle there horses and ride to the sound of gunfire because the true bermudian will proclaim thst thru the sound of gunfire and the hurricans roar we will still love bermuda forever more”.

What we see above is just a fragment of that reprehensible attack [click to download the full versions – Facebook thread 1 and Facebook thread 2]. So now I ask, is this what the PLP regards as conduct befitting a Bermuda Member of Parliament? Is this the behaviour of one of the PLP’s ‘Rising Stars?’ A future Cabinet Member, perhaps? If so, then I really just don’t get it!

You know, maybe I’m just not ‘black’ enough. Maybe I just don’t spend enough time “among the people” as some might say. From my point of view, a political party that seeks to mislead the people who elected it has no regard for those people.

A government that hypocritically engages in political censorship has broken the trust of the people of this country.

A political party that selects candidates who launch incoherent online attacks on voters lacks vision and cannot lead this country into a new era.

I just don’t get it, and I just can’t support it.

• Bryant Trew, a former Best of Bermuda award winner for his Bermuda Sun columns, is not a member or affiliate of (or in any way associated with) either of Bermuda’s political parties. Feedback: bryanttrew@mac.com